


Moonlight

by SkyWrites



Category: Iconoclasts (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon, Time Moves Quickly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-15 23:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14800337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyWrites/pseuds/SkyWrites
Summary: "For a time, I felt I could have another purpose. Could I change? A wonderful person in my life who I chose to let close. 187 years they tried, and I would refuse."This is about those times, about that wonderful person.





	Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> Title is based off the song which I can't stop listening to.
> 
> I really like Black. I desperately wanted to write about her. It's hard to get all the canon information of this game, so I apologize if anything is horribly wrong.

Daggers cut into her skull, etched scars into her mind. A disgusting pressure pulsated in her brain, beating and pounding into her, never ending. Centuries of pain she had endured, and it never got easier. It merely just was. Always. Always there. She rubbed her temples uselessly. It wouldn’t help, but she did it anyway. What else could she do with her hands? They were so heavy.

“Lady.”

She could squeeze it all out. Her arms were so heavy, always so heavy, but she could crush anything with them. She could squeeze her skull a little harder. Squeeze till it popped. That would stop the headache. If only that worked.

“Hello? C’mon, lady!” A voice called out, waving a hand in front of her face.

Agent Black felt the metal creak in her joints. “What?!” She demanded.

“Got you some water,” Agent Grey said with a smirk. She held out a cool blue bottle, still dripping with icy perspiration.

Black groaned. “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”

Grey laughed and sat opposite of her with a weighty thump. The sofas in One Concern: West were so shoddily made. They could barely contain her. Nobody ever could.

“Drink it, you dope.”

“Why would I do that.” Black found the bottle was already in her hands, against her will.

“Helps with headaches,” Grey said with a grin, as if it were obvious, as if it were so easy.

Black felt the urge to crush the bottle in her hands, crush it and throw it at her smug face. That’d wipe the smile away, that’d teach her to get close.

But she didn’t.

“You realize this isn’t how it works,” Black growled.

“Oh, I know,” Grey said, leaning back with a comfortable sigh. “Do it anyway. It’ll help.”

“It will absolutely not.”

“Prove me wrong then.”

A groan. “Trying to use my stubbornness against me huh?” Black shrugged. “Now no matter what I do, I’m forced to go against myself.”

“Yep.” Grey grinned.

Black pointed her heavy finger at the woman opposite of her, resisted the urge to do any more than that. “You forget that I don’t care what you think. I don’t need to prove you wrong, I don’t need to prove _anything_ to you. Some damn water isn’t going to help me.”

Her smile grew wider. “You’re not rubbing your temples anymore though. Seems like it’s already helping.”

Black blinked. The pain was still there. It was always there. But she hadn’t noticed it. When she looked at this woman with her tacky hair and her smug smile, Black seemed to forget about the knives digging into her flesh. But it was still there.

“Just because I’m not rubbing my temples doesn’t mean I don’t have a headache, jackass.”

“I know.”

Black took a swig of the ice-cold water. It sent a shiver through her body. The knives still sliced into her skull, but she thought about the water, thought about how it froze her insides, how it sloshed with her Ivory.

“Do you always go up to people and pretend you know everything about them?”

“Absolutely.”

“And how many people have punched you in the face for it?” Black lightly clenched her fists, could already imagine the bones breaking beneath their weight.

“None, actually,” Grey admitted. “People’re too afraid to stand up to me. I pretend to know them, and they nod along and agree.” She smiled and tilted her head ever so slightly, her dopey mohawk-thing flopping over with the action. “Why, you wanna punch me?”

Oh, what a sinful action! Oh, to give into your wrath! To speak to your fellow man in such a manner, to threaten their lives with harm! What would _Mother_ think? Oh, goodness, no, she would never say something so terrible!

“ **Yes** ,” Black said after another swig of her water.

Grey nearly let out an uproarious laugh, something Black had seen too many times, _felt_ too many times inside her skull. But she stifled that into just a small chuckle. Black almost felt at ease with the action.

“Go right ahead and punch me, see where it gets ya.” That smug toothy grin of hers. She wouldn’t be so smug if Black punched the teeth right out of her. Sure, they’d grow back, but just the thought of her ivory stained face attempting to smile with nothing but a mouth full of gums sent a pleasant chill through Black’s spine.

“You gonna report me?” Black growled, wishing, just this once, that she could act out on her impulse.

“Nah,” Grey replied casually. “Too much hassle, too much paper work. But don’t think I wouldn’t slug you back.”

“Like you could ever hurt me.”

She grinned again and leaned forward, her eyes wild and unreadable. “You’d be surprised, lady. I bet I could find a way to hurt you more than anyone else ever could.”

Black sipped at her water. “I doubt it.”

* * *

She couldn’t believe she was here. She didn’t understand how it came to this. She didn’t understand how she got here. It went against everything she stood for, against everything she knew.

Faceless men sat around tables, their mugs frothing and full yet empty at the same time. They laughed much too loudly, they banged their palms against the counters and the tables and they screamed like bullets through a chamber.

“Here’s a joke for all of ya!” One of them hollered, a young soldier, not even worth remembering even the tiniest detail. “What’s a mummy’s favorite music genre?!” He didn’t wait for anyone else to answer, not that it stopped them from screaming over each other. “Rap!! Like!! You know! Mummy Wrap! Hahahahaha!”

Black clutched at her hair, felt herself pulling out strands. She was in agony. The joke was bad enough, but the yelling, the shouting, the _everything_ felt like teeth biting down into her forehead, like machines drilling into her cranium. But she needed to keep still. She needed to keep her composure. It wouldn’t help to kill those men, it wouldn’t help to make a scene.

“Hey!” Grey shouted, just loud enough to grab their attentions, but in such a way it did not send more waves of pain through Black. “Keep it down over there! Agent Black has finally decided to join us for a drink, so you’ll show her some damn respect! You hear me?!” She never even raised a hand towards any of them.

“W-we’re so sorry, s-sir! Er-m,ma’aam! Er!” One of the other soldiers elbowed his side. “We, we will be more quiet!” Black imagined the soldier saluted to her, but she did not care to remember if he really did. “I-it’s an honor to have you among us lowly soldiers, Agent Black!”

One of the soldiers pulled the other away, whispering, “Dude, just shut up already.”

The bar instantly became silent. Well, not completely silent. A light murmur drifted through the area, a few chuckles here and there, the clink of glass, and the fizz of freshly poured beer. It was not unpleasant. It was not a silence out of fear, but a silence out of respect. Now in the quiet, she could see how the soldiers looked at Agent Grey. Their eyes shone with pride, and when her gaze met theirs they did not flinch away, merely nodded to her, almost like a bow. They did not look at Black.

“Sorry about that,” Grey said as she sat onto her chair, the wood creaking beneath. “The guys get a little rowdy sometimes. They work hard, they see a lot of bad stuff, don’t hold it against ‘em when they want to vent a little.”

Black kept her arms crossed. She should have never said yes. What the hell was she thinking? Fifty years it must have been, fifty damn years Grey kept asking her to go out to the bar. Every time she had said “No,” or “Hell no,” or “Not in a million years, but since we potentially may live longer than that, how about just never?”

And every time, Grey just laughed. She didn’t flinch, she didn’t get upset. She just tried again. Until one day, Black found the words spill out of her mouth like Ivory. “Fine,” she had said. Nothing more, nothing less. But she couldn’t take back what she said, she couldn’t take anything back. She had to go. Grey would not allow her to go back.

A waiter appeared before them, or maybe a bartender. Or maybe it was just another soldier. It didn’t matter. They didn’t matter. “Ah, Grey you ol’ bastard, it’s good to see ya!” For a possible proprietor of food, this person was awfully chummy with one of the top agents of One Concern. Not to mention their strange inability to offer food or beverages. “The place always gets packed when you show up! Everyone gets a smile on their face, and best of all they buy more booze, haha!”

“It’s good to see you too, Al.” Grey grabbed his arm and pulled him close, but the man merely laughed at the tug, attempted to pull back as well, but of course could not budge her. “How’s the kids?”

Meaningless small talk. “They’re doin’ great! Littlest one, well, hm, well she’s gotten it in her head that she wants to go exploring a lot. Likes making treasure maps of the place!” His smile was still so bright, still so cheery, but Black felt a stutter in there, felt a fear that she could understand all too well. “I, haha, I just hope she grows out of that! Pray to Mother for me, will ya? It’s just kids being kids, haha! I’ll have to be a little stricter and teach her about sin a little earlier, haha!”

Grey nodded, her face stony. With the flip of a switch, it seemed like her entire demeanor changed. She was still approachable, still the kind gentle soul as always, but there was something different. “I see. Yes, I think that would be for the best, Al. I’ll have a word with Mother and see if we can’t absolve such a trifling sin, but please keep an eye on her.”

And just like that, the fear was nearly gone. The man’s energy seemed to double. He shook her hand harder, smiled so hard that it made Black’s head hurt. “Of course, of course! Thank you so much, Grey!” His eyes finally fell on Black, as if he had refused to notice her. When he finally did, he let go of Grey and straightened his back. “Agent Black! It is a pleasure to see you here!”

“Uh-huh.”

He would not make eye contact with Black. “My deepest apologies! Here I am, rambling about myself! Can I get you anything?”

Grey quickly answered, thankfully. “One of your best drinks please. The Trifecta I think it is?”

“Absolutely! And it’s on the house!”

Grey frowned. “No, it’s not. I am paying. Is that understood?”

“Of course!” The man relaxed as his eyes fell back upon her. “Sorry, Grey, just a reflex.”

“It’s no problem, I understand.”

The man scurried away, to the dark recesses of Black’s mind, where she would quickly forget him. Grey certainly thought highly of herself, ordering a drink for her and her alone. Not that Black was going to complain, she was never a drinker anyway.

Grey finally turned her attention to Black, almost causing her to flinch. There was so much power in even her smallest movements, so much _Grey._ “So, you been drinkin’ water more lately, huh lady?”

“No.” Black was suddenly extremely aware of the plastic bottle in her coat, felt a strange sense of embarrassment.

Despite Black’s answer, Grey continued, hearing only what she wanted to hear. “Been helpin’ with the headaches at all?”

Her lips were feeling chapped and her tongue felt heavy. “Of course not.”

Grey smirked. “I’m glad you finally decided to come out with me.”

Black found her elbow on the table, head against her arm. “Not like I really had a choice. You’d never stop bothering me.”

She let out a small chuckle, the sound smooth against Black’s ears. “Well, whatever the reason, it’s good you came. It’s good morale for the troops too, believe it or not.”

Eyebrow raised skeptically, Black replied, “I don’t believe it, no.”

The nameless waiter returned and placed her drink down on the table. He saluted to both Grey and Black, making the symbol of the Tri with his hands. Grey returned in kind. Black simply waved him off. The drink sat between them awkwardly, sparkling white like disgusting Ivory. Black wondered when Grey would drink it.

“I noticed you’re not the saluting type, lady.” Grey didn’t appear to be offended. Strange considering her high rank among the Concern.

“I’ll do it when I have to,” Black grumbled. Maybe it was not in her best interest to be this honest with someone who could potentially outrank her, but Black just did not care enough. “I didn’t have to there.”

To Black’s surprise, Grey nodded. “I get that.” There was no hint of anger, no hint of outrage. In all her years alive, Black could never remember a reaction quite like it.

“Really?” She asked incredulously, sitting up. “I see you saluting to every person you damn see. How the hell do you ‘ _get’_ that?”

Another smug smile. She took a moment to think about this one. She always took a moment before she said something stupid.

“With two hands we show respect to Mother. With one hand we show we respect another.” In a quick motion she clasped her hand around Black’s metal arm. Black felt nothing, of course.

“What kind of cheesy nonsense is that?” Black hissed, recoiling her arm back into her coat, out of sight.

“Ah, I admit that’s something I’ve wanted to say for a long time!” Grey laughed. “Never had the chance to, though.”

Black had no response to something so moronic. She simply stared at the drink on the table, remembering her thirst from before. How annoying. Grey did not take her booze yet. “You ever gonna drink that or what?”

Grey blinked. She stared. She stared harder. She _moved closer_ to stare more. “Lady, I can’t tell if you’re that full of yourself or if you got a sick sense of humor.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

She sat back against her chair and ran a hand through her hair. “By the Tri, you really are just that full of yourself. After all these years, have you _ever_ seen me eat or drink anything?”

Black started to feel a tingling in her spine, felt a heat in her cheeks. This was not a feeling she was comfortable with, not a feeling she wanted. “No. I assumed you just ate on your own time.”

“This is why you need to get out more,” Grey sighed as she shook her head. Without a care in the world, she rapped her knuckles against her stomach. A clunky noise responded in turn. Metal. “Ivory got rid of all that stomach nonsense for me. I can’t eat or drink anything or else I get incredibly sick and the guys down in the labs gotta operate on me to get whatever junk I stuck in there.” She smirked, but it was the kind of spiteful, hate-filled smirk that Black could understand. “Well, that’s not true. I can drink Ivory.”

Black felt her fingers tapping against herself. “I didn’t know.”

“No shit, lady!” Grey laughed again, easing whatever tension had begun to build up in Black’s mind. “I think everyone on this entire planet knew I couldn’t eat! Except you! Must be nice livin’ in a world of your own, huh?”

“Not at all.”

“Ah, well, it’s not so bad,” Grey leaned back and relaxed. Her smile wasn’t quite so strained. It was there, and it was real, but she let her guard down around Black. “Don’t gotta piss anymore at least. Although, gotta admit, pretty damn stupid how my body constantly thinks I’m starving to death. I mean, I regenerate whatever I lose, but eh, it’s pretty annoying to deal with all the time.” By the time she was finished, there was a deep frown etched into her face. “You get me, don’t you, Black?”

She felt her head pulse with pain as if in response to Grey’s question.

“I get you,” she said, downing her drink in a single motion.

* * *

Electricity flittered through the air, bounced between the leaves, shot through her skull. It coursed through the metal in her arms, tingling where the flesh met. The blues of the forest were too blue, the purples were too purple. It was all so bright, yet all so dim at the same time. She hated it here. Although, seemed everyone else hated it here too. Seemed no one wanted to be here. Hm.

“Black,” Grey called out from behind, her voice barely heard over the sparks of the trees.

“Yeah, yeah,” Black groaned, holding out her bottle with a sigh. “I brought water along, quit nagging me.”

Grey was quiet. She was always quieter around Black. Usually her laughter and roars could be heard even through the thickest of metals, but she always lowered her voice when she knew Black was near. This was different. She was even quieter.

“This isn’t right, Black.” Grey had stopped, streams of electricity jutting to her stomach, to the ground, then quickly dissipating into the night sky.

She rolled her eyes. She was glad White wasn’t here to see that action, he’d have given her hell for it. “Oh, come on, don’t tell me this is actually a moral dilemma for you.”

But, of course, Grey was so simple. She thought she had everything figured out, thought she knew everything till, of course _,_ she didn’t. And when she didn’t, no one could move on. She was such a pain. Black should have just left her there, **should have moved on**.

“I already know what you’re thinking,” Grey grumbled, her eyes still meeting with Black’s fiercely. “We’ve inflicted the Penance on a countless number of people. We’ve killed families before. Why does it matter now?”

Black’s lips curled in disgust. Grey was so good at pretending she knew people. Black took a swig at her water.

“It’s an entire settlement this time.” She crossed her arms. “We’re supposed to sacrifice the few to protect the many aren’t we? If we--”

“We’re supposed to do whatever _He_ says,” Black spat. “There’s no morals, there’s no creed, there’s no underlying justice to what we do, there never was. You of all people should know this.”

Grey grit her teeth, clutching at the rocket launcher in her arms. “ _Shut up, already_!”

Black flinched, felt the daggers stab into her brain. Grey knew what she did.

“How can you keep acting like you don’t care?” Grey demanded, stepping forward. Each step sent waves of electricity across the grass.

“Because it’s not an act, you oaf,” Black groaned, rubbing her temples. “Why the hell should I care?”

“Because they’re _alive_! Because _you’re_ alive! They’re human, like you, like me!”

Her voice was so loud! The words bounced around her head like a bird trapped in a cave, desperate to escape the dark. “Have I told you that you should write cheesy Mother’s Day cards?” Black tried to wave it off, but the ache was stabbing more and more.

“No!” Grey shouted, her voice blasting apart Black’s skull. “I love your sarcasm and your cynicism, but not now! This is not the time for it!”

Black pressed the palms of her hands against her face, felt the cool steel, felt the electrical charge zap her eyeballs painfully. “Will you stop yelling?” Where did her water bottle go? She was so thirsty.

“I will only speak as loud as I must for you to hear me,” Grey said stoically, her voice still just as stony, but at least a little lower.

“Again, with the lines,” Black sighed, defeated. She felt the burning eyes upon her, could feel the air charge with another shout. “Fine, fine, I’ll listen.” She quickly gathered her water bottle from the static filled grass and tilted her head back as she gulped its contents.

“I have said my piece already,” Grey said. “We should not destroy the settlement.”

“Ugh.” Black was so tired of this. Everything else was so simple for Grey. Everything else was so difficult for Black. Why was this where she had to always worry and act so tough and heroic?

“So what would you have us do, huh, Grey?”

“We go back to Mother. We tell her we refuse to inflict Penance on an entire settlement. She will be angry, but what can she do to us? We will survive.”

Black rubbed at her temples slowly, breathing deep the electricity in the air. “You always think you’re looking out for others. Yet here you are, thinking about only _us_.”

Grey’s eyes widened, a rare look of shock on her face. “What do you mean?!”

“Of course, _we’ll_ survive, Grey. Any idiot could figure that out.” Black found she had already emptied her water bottle. She was still so thirsty, damn it. “What about the people in the settlement, huh?”

“They’ll be exiled by the Concern of course, labelled as sinners no doubt, but they will leave us alone, they’ll find a way to live without Ivory, they’ll use the electricity from the forest!”

“What the hell kind of planet have you been living on?” Black growled. “Mother won’t care if we refuse. She’ll lock us up, and she’ll get someone _else_ to do it. She’ll send more Bastion troops then. More Bastion troops will die than needed to, more people will die than needed to. _He_ won’t be happy. _He_ will demand they die. They used _His_ Ivory, and even if they promise to never touch the stuff, _He_ won’t believe them, and never will _Mother.”_ Their names felt like acid against her tongue.

Grey clenched her fists, she narrowed her eyes, she did every heroic cliché in the book. “Then we join the people of the settlement! We defend them ourselves! We tell Mother what she’s doing is wrong!”

“You’re not that stupid, Grey. Stop it.”

“We have to at least _try_ –

“Just stop it, already.” Black was tired of this. Her head was aching. “What are we gonna do after that? What are we gonna do when the planet falls apart because there’s no Ivory left? What are we gonna do when _He_ comes down to kill everything and everyone here? Is it worth it for one settlement?”

Silence. Only the static of the trees.

“This is the best we can do for them. This is the best we can do for everyone. If you _actually_ cared about people, you’d kill the fools at the settlement so no one else has to die. You’d kill them quickly, you’d make it more painless than the Penance would, because **_He_** knows just how painful it really is. This is our chance to do it ourselves. You think those buffoon Bastion soldiers will make it as quick as we will?”

Something shot between them. A spark from Grey’s stomach to Black’s arms.

“I hate this.” She had given up. She had finally lost. Black would lose every argument to Grey over most everything, but when it came to this, she never did.

“Yeah, well, I don’t like it either,” Black hissed. She saw a twitch of Grey’s eyes, a glimmer of something white. “Don’t tell me you’re going to cry over it, come _on_.”

“I will not hide my emotions like you,” Grey whimpered, her voice still somehow sturdy and strong. She walked ahead of Black, towards the settlement. She held her weapon firmly, she stood tall, and most importantly of all, she did not stop. Nothing would stop her.

Agent Black left her plastic bottle behind in the grass. “I don’t hide my emotions.”

* * *

Her head was screaming in agony. They were screaming. The world was screaming. _She_ was screaming. Words were falling out of her, noises that shouldn’t be hers left her body. She wasn’t sure where she was. She saw yellow. She **hated** yellow.

The rocket. They were trying to take it.

No. They can’t have it. This was Grey’s. This was for her. it was even powered with water. It was water powered! Grey was so amazed. Wasn’t she amazed? Ivory rained down upon the earth, upon her rocket. Yes, water. Just like Grey wanted to drink. Just like Grey wanted Black to have. It would help with the headaches.

She’d kill them. She’d kill them. She’d kill them. She’d kill them. She’d kill them.

Someone cried out. Was it her? No. No, she couldn’t. She was just thirsty. She was so thirsty. It hurt so much. Everything hurt so much. Her head was skewered with knives, bleeding at every hole, yet it was her chest that stung more now. A new pain? Why. Why was there more. Hadn’t she hurt enough?

Water. She needed water. That was all. That would stop the pain. That would stop the pain in her spine, the heavy weight at her back. The rocket would be okay if she just took a drink.

She drank. She drank. It was cool. It was refreshing. It tasted like copper, viscous oily copper. The water must have been something chemically made to better suit the rocket. That was okay. It was still water. This was still what Grey would have wanted. This was still Grey.

She’d kill them. She’d kill them. She’d kill them. She had to kill them. She had to kill them. She HAD to KILL them. SHE HAD TO KILL THEM. THIS ISN’T HAPPENING. NONE OF THIS IS HAPPENING.

The water wasn’t helping. Why? It always helped. It always did. The pain was only getting worse. Her head was on fire. Her everything was on fire. Her arms were so heavy, her spine was so heavy, her head was so heavy. But she was still thirsty. She felt more screams. It was getting hard to breathe. Something else left her mouth. It was water. She couldn’t lose her water! She needed it! Grey wouldn’t like it if she didn’t drink her water.

But it kept leaving. It kept leaving. Why was it always leaving? Why did it always leave? Why did this always happen to her? What did she do wrong? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

WHY?

The men in white were around her. They were touching her, they were putting her into the pod. GET AWAY FROM ME. She didn’t want to go into the pod. She knew what the pod meant, she knew what would happen! Stop touching me, stop it! She couldn’t fight them off! Why? She was strong, she was strong wasn’t she!? There was nothing else, she had nothing else but her strength, why couldn’t she get them off?!

She couldn’t breathe anymore. They took her. She was back in the pod. It was dark. It was so dark. Something was wriggling inside her, something was going inside her. The Ivory! The damn Ivory. She didn’t want Ivory anymore. She didn’t want that poison! She wanted water. She was on fire! It was suffocating. She was drowning. Her head was exploding, her spine was broken, her arms were gone, her chest was impaled, her legs were twisted, and she was alone. Something burbled in her throat, something cut into her neck, something she couldn’t fight back any longer.

She screamed.

Black held onto her and she screamed. It was terrifying. But Grey was there. She felt the warmth of Grey’s clothes, of her skin. She clutched onto her, and she felt herself rasp as she screamed again. Why was she screaming? She didn’t want to. White clouded her vision.

“Black?! Black?!” Grey cried, clutching her, holding her close. The pain was disappearing. The men were gone. “It’s okay! It’s okay! I’m right here, I’m right here.” Grey repeated her words over and over. Black could tell she was scared too, but not as much. She held her close.

It was over. She realized it was over, but there was still something wrong. A coldness in her spine, a lingering fear inside of her. Black didn’t scream, but white tears streamed down her cheek against her will. She didn’t understand. This didn’t make sense. She never cried. She heaved pathetically into Grey’s chest, gasping for air.

“It’s okay,” Grey repeated, holding her closer, her breathing evening out. “I’m here.”

She saw the broken moon outside their window. It was yellow. It was so pretty. She still clutched onto Grey in their bed. She didn’t understand what happened. She didn’t know why it happened. She was still terrified, still vulnerable. This wasn’t meant to happen to her. She wasn’t supposed to cry.

Grey stroked her hair, stroked her head. The softness of her hands, the gentleness of her being, it soothed her in a way she could never imagine. She had never been so close. She had never let anyone see her this way. But it didn’t hurt anymore.

Her headache was gone.


End file.
